


(this will be) enough

by claremontdiaz (sharonsnatalia)



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Henry centric, M/M, Pining, allusions to sex, no explicit content tho, this is set during the book btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharonsnatalia/pseuds/claremontdiaz
Summary: No matter how much he craved more, no matter how he wanted to know how Alex’s arms around him and his around Alex would feel in the morning light rather than in the cover of night, no matter how much he wanted dates and soft kisses and bodies pressed together for more than just pleasure, he was certain it was enough for him.OR Henry is a gay mess. Send tweet.





	(this will be) enough

The feeling of Alex’s lips against his own, the feeling of them wrapped around his dick, haunted him as he made he was back to his room for the night. His heart, the traitorous thing, had not slowed by even a fraction since they first kissed in the Red Room, and the warmth furrowed behind his ribs only grew with each passing thought about Alex and Alex beneath him. 

This would be enough for him, right? This friendship—the late night phone calls and the jokes and the ways his heart craved to hear the sound of Alex’s laugh whenever he could—and the sex—the details of which he was sure his heart, still traitorous, would cling to until the day he died—would be enough for him. They had to be. No matter how much he craved more, no matter how he wanted to know how Alex’s arms around him and his around Alex would feel in the morning light rather than in the cover of night, no matter how much he wanted dates and soft kisses and bodies pressed together for more than just pleasure, he was certain it was enough for him.  

Friend with blowjobs. He could do that. He could handle that. Just another title to add to the list.

Henry had never thought himself much of liar, beyond what his title required of him.

* * *

It was not enough for him. That became clear to Henry that day in the tack room, when he wanted nothing more than to stay with Alex longer than the hour they had. He was a fool to ever think that being friends and having Alex’s mouth against him were compatible in any way, not when everything about Alex was a masterpiece Michelangelo would be jealous he had not created. His heart beat too loudly. His cheeks warmed too quickly. His mind turned too easily to thoughts of Alex.

He pressed a lazy kiss to Alex’s forehead, felt Alex’s content hum before he pulled away and pressed a decidedly less lazy kiss to Henry’s lips. 

Only two weeks away from Alex and his heart, always a traitor, threatened to leap out of his chest during their reunion. It nearly spelled out  _ love  _ in Morse code. 

He kissed Alex back. The two ended up laid across the bunch, Alex below Henry, and their lips rarely apart.

“We really don’t have the fucking time for this.” Alex said, cursing under his breath. 

They kept kissing for a while longer before they regrettably pulled apart, soon to be 5,000 miles apart.

* * *

If Connecticut had not confirmed his feelings already, Paris certainly did. He woke up curled in Alex’s arms, the warmth behind his ribs nearly enough to burn him. Turning to face Alex, he placed a soft kiss to his lips.

Alex shifted, turning Henry over on his back and pinning his wrists against the bed before he once more pressed his lips against Henry’s. The kiss began gentle, a soft hopeful sort of thing, before Henry sunk his teeth into Alex’s bottom lip and the pace picked up considerably.

Henry couldn’t say how long they stayed like that. Not long enough, was the best answer he could give. Of course, he was certain that anything short of forever would not have been long enough to soothe his heart and the way he craved, desperately and wholly and disastrously, for something—someone—he could never truly have.

He focused on the press of Alex’s body against his, the way his hair tickled his chest as he translated  _ Le Monde  _ to Alex, the way Alex bit into the tarts and the baguettes, anything other than the nameless feeling that Alex inspired in his gut and all the ways it was unrequited. 

He thought it was almost enough to love Alex—to have him in all ways except name—in the way he does, in the only way he can. It kept him from running for the hills. And to know that Alex, with his insistence early on that they were friends with blowjobs tacked on and his silence on the evolution of that into cuddling and soft kisses and night not spent together spent longing for the other, cared for Henry not in the way he craved eased him into love.

There was nothing to lose, really, he had convinced himself. Not when the future of their  _ thing,  _ of the kisses and the sex and the fluttering of his heart, was bound to end and Alex was bound to carry on as he always had. This would stop one day, and Henry was sure having Alex as a friend would be enough for him—it was all they could be after all.

* * *

The nights he spent alone, without even Alex’s voice on the other end of the phone, he forced away thoughts of a future of limbs entangled with his own every morning, of a wedding as grand as Philip and Martha’s between himself and Alex. He thought, instead, of legs and lips and stomachs and arms and hips and carried them into his dreams. 

After the first snapchat of a black screen saying only:  _ the next message is only for the eyes of His Royal Horniness  _ followed by a absolutely lewd picture that his absolutely cannot be looking at during a meeting, Henry called Alex—his intent to set boundaries—only to find himself listening Alex describing his day and asking for a picture to match the one he sent.

Eye closed, his head leaned back against the wall as he sat on his bed, Henry found himself agreeing to send one. A soft smile broke the tension in his face as he heard Alex laugh.

“Of course, I would much rather you see it in person than in a picture.” Henry said. He heard the hitch in Alex’s breath, heard it grow heavy.

“Soon.” Alex said it as if he might die if that was not the case. He continued, his tone and breathing lighter, “As soon as humanly possible, I’ll be be doing much more than just  _ seeing it. _ ”

Henry tried to ignore what Alex’s voice alone did to him.

* * *

The admissions of  _ I miss you  _ and their essential exclusivity since they began this dance were almost too much for Henry to handle. 

He slept easy that night, warm and fuzzy and cheeks red.

He was in love, had probably been in love for longer than he cared to admit. That he was sure of. More than he was sure of the impossibility that they could have anything more than this, that Alex loved him as he loved Alex, that he was worthy of Alex’s love, he knew he had fallen in love all too quickly.


End file.
